Miller: Ducks' coach creates students of teachers

Big Kahunas teammates Chris Yusi, left, Joe Hwang, Jason Cooper and Olivier Cazalis recap their game against the Wipeouts at Westminster ICE. The mood was light and fun despite a close game and 0-1 loss against the Wipeouts. The adult hockey team was formed after being challenged to do so by Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau. Cooper and Hwang are fan-development coordinators for the Ducks. The rest of the team's members are teachers.CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

WESTMINSTER – He calls the sport "addictive," explains that even his wife is now playing hockey.

Once you start, Olivier Cazalis says, it's very hard to stop.

But here, he's talking about actually stopping, bringing yourself to a halt after you've worked so hard at becoming a blur.

"On the ice, you can go very fast, amazingly fast, but you can't stop," Cazalis says. "It's scary. Good thing there are boards all around."

How skilled is Bruce Boudreau at moving men to act, this coach who has the Ducks playing at a level higher than nearly every other team in the NHL?

Boudreau's words helped inspire Cazalis, a Frenchman who grew up playing rugby, a math teacher who rarely had been on skates, a man who knew ice hockey only from the Olympics, to take up an endeavor that now has him blissfully face-planting Plexiglas.

Back when the NHL was stagnating under a labor dispute, Boudreau was still admirably growing the game, growing it at the very tips of the roots, where the novices and dry-landers reside.

"He takes his role as an ambassador of the game very seriously," says Jason Cooper, the Ducks' fan development coordinator. "He really wants to support the game, especially in a non-traditional market. His comment was sort of flippant, but it landed."

In mid-October, when he was in demand only because the NHL was out of order, Boudreau was invited to the team's annual SCORE orientation at Honda Center. The program uses hockey to teach lesson plans and encourage healthy living at local schools.

Organizers asked Boudreau, a celebrated talker who has an autobiography called "Gabby," if he would be willing to speak to the group. Five minutes is all Cooper asked for.

At the end of his 30-minute presentation, Boudreau encouraged the 75 or so teachers in attendance to get off their rear ends and try hockey themselves.

Twenty signed up and, from that group, the Big Kahunas emerged, triumphantly striding over the boards at Westminster Ice and immediately landing right back on those rear ends that were raised only temporarily.

"My legs just went out from under me," says Kristin Jones, a fourth-grade teacher at Mattie Lou Maxwell Elementary in Anaheim. "It was scary. There was a point where I could have started crying and I thought, 'I can't. Hockey players don't cry. I cannot cry. I will do this.'"

A couple of weeks later, in the Big Kahunas' first game, Jones had two assists.

The team plays on Sunday afternoons in a co-ed beginners league, where the play is slow but the learning is not.

Big Kahunas teammates Chris Yusi, left, Joe Hwang, Jason Cooper and Olivier Cazalis recap their game against the Wipeouts at Westminster ICE. The mood was light and fun despite a close game and 0-1 loss against the Wipeouts. The adult hockey team was formed after being challenged to do so by Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau. Cooper and Hwang are fan-development coordinators for the Ducks. The rest of the team's members are teachers. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Big Kahunas Lesile Flores, left, and Kristin Jones share laughs with their Big Kahunas teammates after their 0-1 loss to the Wipeouts at Westminster ICE. They took up Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau on his challenge to them to learn to play hockey. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Big Kahunas teammates Lori Matsuna, a St. Joachim instructor, left, and Joe Hwang, fan-development coordinator for the Ducks, say goodbye after their beginner's league hockey game against the Wipeouts at Westminster ICE on Sunday. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Lesile Flores, left, and Kristin Jones share laughs with their Big Kahunas teammates after their 0-1 loss to the Wipeouts at Westminster ICE. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Big Kahunas goalie Jason Cooper, lounges for the puck against the Wipeouts as teammate Joe Hwang later gains control of the puck. Cooper and Hwang are fan-development coordinators for the Ducks. The rest of the team's members are teachers. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Jonna Powell, a teacher at Tustin's Fairmont Private Schools, says goodbye to her Big Kahunas teammates. The fourth-grade teacher only recently learned to ice skate to be able to play in the beginner's league. The team lost to the Wipeouts, 0-1. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Chris Yusi is unable to gain control of the Big Kahunas' game against the Wipeouts held at Westminster ICE. The Santa Ana school teacher compares the toughness of his job to game by saying, "If you can stand in front of kids everyday, you can play hockey." CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Jack Cooper, 1, makes a special guest appearance in the locker room with dad Jason after the Big Kahunas game against the Wipeouts at Westminster ICE on Sunday. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Jason Cooper, right, invites his Big Kahunas teammates to his home for pizza after their 0-1 loss to the Wipeouts at Westminster ICE. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Jonna Powell, center, remains standing against the Wipeouts after a rough battle for control. The Fairmont Private Schools fourth-grade teacher learned to ice skate specifically to be able to play in the beginner's league with the Big Kahunas. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
The Big Kahunas is an adult hockey team that formed after being challenged to do so by Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau. During the lockout, Boudreau was speaking to a local group of teachers at a function and challenged them to learn to play hockey. About a dozen of them took him up on it and joined a beginner's league. They played against the Wipeouts Sunday at Westminster ICE. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Big Kahunas teammate Lori Matsuna, a St. Joachim instructor, prepares to the game against the Wipeouts at Westminster ICE. She only recently learned to ice skate to be able to join the beginner's league. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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